Genocide of Muslims a step away in IoK, Assam: Dr Stanton

The world's best-known expert on genocide has said Muslims in occupied Kashmir and Assam (India) are just one step away from extermination (genocide).

President of the Genocide Watch, Dr Gregory Stanton, at a briefing at the US Congress in Washington said, "Preparation for genocide is definitely under way in India." He said, the persecution of Muslims in Assam and Kashmir is the stage just before genocide and the next stage is extermination - that's what we call a genocide.

The Congressional briefing "Ground reports on Kashmir & NRC" was organized by three US-based civil society organizations - the Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC), Emgage Action and Hindus for Human Rights (HfHR).

Dr Stanton said the ongoing genocide in both occupied Kashmir and Assam was a "classic case" and followed the pattern of the "Ten Stages of Genocide". He said that Modi's regime had all the hallmarks of an incipient Nazi regime. "Nationalism taken to its extreme is fascism and Nazism," he added.

Dr Stanton created the world-famous "Ten Stages of Genocide" as a presentation to the US Department of State when he worked there in 1996. He also drafted UN Security Council resolutions that created the International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda and the Burundi Commission of Inquiry, two places where genocides had occurred.

After leaving the Department of State in 1999, Dr Stanton founded Genocide Watch, a civil society organization that says it "exists to predict, prevent, stop and punish genocide and other forms of mass murder". A former President of the International Association of Genocide Scholars, his research on genocides in Cambodia and Rwanda, and of the Rohingyas is recognized worldwide.

Dr Angana Chatterji, a scholar with University of California, Berkeley, also participating in the briefing via video link, slammed the crackdown in occupied Kashmir since Modi government revoked special status of Kashmir on August 5.

"Reports have documented the inhumane treatment and torture of children, the elderly, and women; illegal detentions, including mass detentions; the denial of the basic needs of life, the curtailment of freedom of speech and movement, the falsification of social facts and their amplification by the authorities and the closure of sacred places," she said.

She criticized India's Home Minister, Amit Shah, for reportedly saying that Western human rights standards cannot be blindly applied to India. "Today, over 120 days into the siege, the continuance of preventive detention and illegal, warrantless detention; custodial torture; the reported violation of the right to information, health, education, food and shelter, restrictions on freedom of speech and civil and political rights; and the denial of political space remain urgent, critical issues," she added.

Dr Chatterji said, "Kashmiris be given the opportunity to publicly articulate their experiences and express their anguish, rage, fear, helplessness and dissent. The international community's outrage has not been impactful thus far. When a state fails to uphold its mandate to govern within the parameters of international law, the international community must act."

Raqib Hameed Naik, a journalist from occupied Kashmir, said the ongoing lockdown in the occupied territory was one of the worst sieges in the last decade. He also disputed the Indian government's claim that Indian troops had not killed any Kashmiris since August 5 when the special status of the territory was withdrawn.